Score: Rockies - 3, Diamondbacks - 5
Record: 0-1
Forget that the Rockies lost this game. It doesn't matter. We all know that, since it was the first game of Spring Training. But there were some good things and some bad things today. The pitchers are still trying to find the strike zone, as Ubaldo Jimenez, Alan Embree, and Juan Morillo each hit a batter, and Ryan Mattheus came real close to doing it in the ninth inning. U-Ball walked two batters and allowed three runs. Just a bit rusty. Aaron Cook committed an error on a pickoff, but the good he did outweighs that error. Cook struck out one and had four groundouts in his two innings of work.
Yet the story of the game has to be Chris Iannetta. He went 1-for-2 with a double and an RBI and threw out two runners. He may have a third throw, but the umpire made a tough call, according to the announcers. We'll want to see what Iannetta can do with his CS% as the starter for a full season. Last season, Iannetta threw out 22.6% of runners (12/53). That's a tenth better than his Team USA teammate Brian McCann (22.5%, 27/120). Iannetta rates a red in Will Carroll's Team Health Report (subscription required) on the Rockies.
At this point, I'll likely have a win probability graph from Fangraphs.com here, but we'll have to wait for the start of games that count before a graph appears here.
Thanks to TuLoRocks2008, RockiesDave, BlakeBomber, Franchise26, DbacksSkins, RockiesMagicNumber, rockinthepile, Poseidon's Fist, The Lodo Magic Man, Silverblood, jrockies, AtkinsandTulofan, muzia02, Rox Girl, 303buff, Tom (RFTN), holly96, Jabberwocky, Squeaky, Roberbola, mkorpal, theoldgrizzlybear, and Rockie4Ever for talking about the game in 754 comments (well, the count should be a bit lower since I didn't thank myself for contributing).